Gateway release another 'Executive Update' (I say Gateway and not Amiga as its them who is really pulling the strings here) to clear things up for the Amiga community after a confusing time for everybody them saw ruours flying around all over the place.

And the result of this, well, one thing is for sure - it certainly clears things up. The main news being that the next Amiga is going to be a piece of software that sits on top of another OS and gives what? Improved Internet access? Thats pretty much the impression I get, gone is the revolutionary hardware that was in the pipeline, Amiga are no longer aiming in this direction - no instead they are aiming for a 'revolutionary (a term I use lightly)' (and in Amigas own words) software technology that will enable Internet services on an emerging category of products commonly referred to as "Information Appliances".

Now maybe i'm being a bit harsh here and am jumping the gun somewhat, however, I fail to understand in anyway how this can bring any joy to the Amiga community. Ok, they might be right in one thing when they say that the amiga was never about a box. It was never about an operating system either. Sure those things were part of what made the original Amiga great, but at its heart, Amiga was simply about a better way. Amiga was ahead of its time. Amiga promised to change the world. It ran against conventional wisdom and was better than anything out there at the time. In fact, we could all argue that it's still better than anything out there. However, is what Gateway are aiming at really a continuation of this? Although they do fail to mention what exactly they are aiming at in the release it most certainly doesn't sound anything like the plans they had a few months ago, plans there were really getting the Amiga folk excitied.

This change of direction by gateway re-opens the question to why Jim Collas left, maybe this was the very reason, maybe he didn't like what Gateway had planned and decided it was time to get out before the name of Amiga was completly ruined by an idea that seems to have little or no real point behind it.

This is just the viewpoint I see things from though, looking at it from another way can give a different impression. Although Gateway have said that they won't be developing the hardware themselves they have said that they will have other companies who they will be working closely with who will. So there is still a chance that there will be a revolutionary machine, it just won't be called Amiga, instead the software running on it will be. Basically, the situation is still very confusing, no-one can really say they know what is going on apart from Gateway (I hope they do anyway). Again, its ore of the sane story, wait and see, although i'm sure there is only so long that people can do this for.

Anyway, maybe this is what we needed, maybe now we can completly forget about Gateway and concentrate on some of the things closer to home like what may be coming of this Phoenix project along with AQUA and Phase5. And you never know what Jim Collas may be upto now...;) David Flaherty
Amiga Nutta Editor

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